The present invention provides for computer-implemented methods and related methods to assist a crop producer or other in selecting agricultural inputs, such as seed products to use in one or more fields, or to predict or describe relative performance of one or more seed products.
The problem is generally described in the context where the seed products are corn hybrids. The current industry-wide approach to delivering product performance information for use in hybrid selection by producers is to use numerous comparative yield measurements from recent years (primarily the most recent year) and the geography considered relevant to the producer. Use of recent product performance data in selection of hybrids is not completely indicative of future hybrid performance as environmental and biotic factors vary from year to year, including extreme weather events, such as drought or flooding and pest or disease prevalence. Moreover, this approach does not fully take into account environmental and biotic factors important to a hybrid's performance. Furthermore, this approach lacks the full assessment of the relevance of the information generated by the trials to the relative performance of cultivars (genotype by environment interaction), for example genetic correlations. It assumes recent experience is the best predictor of future relative hybrid performance, regardless of how representative the recent experience may or may not be of the long-term environmental profile of the producer's land base.
In addition, this selection approach does not take into account a producer's objectives for productivity, nor does it allow for objective and specific recommendations of seed products or other crop product considerations, for example, fertilizer types or irrigation needs, for a particular land base so that producers may minimize their risk of unexpected performance occurrences. Although risk is uncertain, it is manageable.
What is needed is a method for product selection that is useful in characterizing relative performance of different seed products so that risk can be managed.